


Reading Trauma

by envylocked



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Asexual Character, Gen, Group Therapy, Illiteracy, Molestation, Repressed Memories, Sexual Abuse, charlie suddenly has to deal with all his shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-16 02:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3471206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/envylocked/pseuds/envylocked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Dennis is a genius, he thinks he can whip up a quick fix for Charlie's illiteracy. But learning rips up all the roots Charlie's been trying to keep buried since, what, the third grade?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there won't be graphic descriptions of charlie's abuse. the tags refer to brief mentions and eventually, charlie talking about it. when we get to those parts, i'll put warnings.

Charlie and Ronnie's parents were both really new at the whole parenting thing. None of them wanted kids but they dealt with what they got and they tried their best. For the most part. They didn't set rules, really, because it was too much a chore to keep them consistent and there was a lot of minor shit their kids pulled that wasn't going to impact them in the long run.  
They didn't know what they were doing. But they knew they didn't want their kids to end up like they had; stuck in sex work or living in and out of prison. Their expectations weren't too high. The goals were more along the lines of 'stay in school and do something with your life.' Which, spoiler alert, both Charlie and Ronnie did. So their parents did good, right?

There were a lot of lies passed between Charlie and his mother. This was a new development. They used to be super close until she got most her hours cut at her retail job, and then she suddenly had no time for him. Which really made no sense because she was home. She was just always leaving him alone downstairs while she locked herself in her room. Charlie hadn't made it to the third grade before he got his first babysitter (his mother's response to catching him huffing glue. Not that like, Jack prevented anything Charlie shouldn't have been doing. But whatever.)

And that's when the lying started.

Charlie ended up spending all the hours he could in Ronnie's bedroom. They were supposed to be doing homework. That was the rule if they were going to have sleepovers on school nights. 

The homework rule didn't last long, especially with Charlie's desperate attempt to keep the secret under wraps. He started with distracting Ronnie, suggesting better pastimes like throwing rocks at trains or literally anything else, and then a habit formed, until Ronnie's parents caught on when they read the 'his grades could be so much better if only he did his homework' comment on the next progress report.  
But when that happened Charlie took control back and suggested they just copy off of Dennis or Dee or Pete or Michael. Or literally anyone else. By the time they reached high school, copied homework turned into copied essays and exams and their friends would only shell out answers for something in return. By then Ronnie had assumed the roll of their Catholic school's only drug dealer. Charlie was still in control. He and Ronnie would fake their way through the American education system together. Except Ronnie knew how to read.

Dennis suggested a tutor (ha, ok Dennis, I'll just pay for it with the piles of money I've got stored in the moat around my mansion, that sounds great) and Ronnie tried to teach Charlie himself, but he didn't know shit about teaching and Charlie barely knew a fraction of the alphabet before he quit. It was like he didn't want to learn. He had tried in the beginning, and then he just froze. The gears stopped turning and he wouldn't cooperate. It was too exhausting and it was probably easier to just fake the rest of his high school career. Charlie had already made it this far on his own.

It's not like it mattered, anyway. He could be a mechanic or a truck driver or an exterminator or a musician and he would never have to know how to read to do any of those things.

His friends got him to graduate, but just barely. His finals were scrawled on the inside of his jacket and Dee got stuck with doing most of his assignments (or at least the ones for classes he didn't share with the rest of his friends). Charlie could only decipher his own name on his diploma. He could read. He didn't remember what all those letters were called but he knew how to write Charlie and Kelly and even if the rest was a blur, he wasn't illiterate, like Dennis always called him. He could write, even if most people couldn't read it, but that wasn't his fault. And that wasn't the point of writing, anyway. He wasn't writing for other people, he was writing for himself. He could read what he had written. He could read.

\--

It was 10 am on a Thursday in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  
The day had been going fine, really, until Dennis had to fuck it up with his completely unnecessary complaining. The bar filled with his shrill in the middle of what was about to be a really funny story.  
"Charlie, you illiterate piece of shit," Dennis barged into their bar interrupting any and all conversation currently filling Paddy's.  
"I'm not illiterate, Dennis, I just"  
"No. No, Charlie. This is absolute gibberish," he yelled, smacking the papers he held crinkled in his fist. "None of this is remotely close to English. What is this?" Dennis asked, gesturing to an upside down stick figure and something purple.  
"Dude, it's just a thing I had to sign," Charlie shrugged like it was obvious. "You cant even read it and you think I'm the illiterate one? Ha."  
"Oh good lord, is that what you think? You're not illiterate because you can read your own made up language?"  
Charlie nods. "I can read what the paper says so obviously I cant be illiterate," he says, rolling his eyes.  
"Wait a minute. What's the paper?" Mac chimed in, trying to get caught up to the current train-wreck Charlie had probably gotten them all into this time.  
"First, Charlie here signed us up for a charity event" The gang painfully groaned in unison. "And when the people over st this event opened up this eloquently worded form, oh, along with some dead spiders, they assumed it must have been a child's work and now Paddy's is being inspected. They think we're infested with spiders and children."  
"Goddammit, Charlie. Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Dee said, swiveling in her barstool to face Charlie.  
"The spiders weren't dead when I sent them and also I'm not illiterate," he spat out before leaving for home.  
"You know what we need to do about this," Dennis started. "We're gonna teach Charlie how to read."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> charlie kelly is my beautiful asexual son i love that dirtgrub from the bottom of my heart and i just want him to recover from his sexual trauma and learn to read  
> i am also v sick of abuse stories written by ppl who haven't experienced abuse, like we get it ya mean well but it just isn't accurate. so happy birthday heres a story by a person whose dealt w similar shit  
> i rly like criticism so feel free to punch me in the face


	2. Chapter 2

Mac tricked Charlie into coming over to his and Dennis' apartment for a movie marathon (I promise, bro, you're not even gonna see Dennis. he's working his Dennis system magic and its gonna take him a couple hours to get done with the D) and when he got there, the door was locked behind him.  
"Dude, what's going on? If this is an intervention, I'm not gonna change anything about myself as a person," Charlie started rambling.  
"Relax," Mac reassured him. "We're gonna teach you how to read."  
This set something off in Charlie and they all immediately understood that this was going to be harder than it should have been. His whole body tensed up and he looked like he was gonna try to bolt. Hence the locked door.  
"I dont know why you all seem to think I cant read but that's bullshit. How could I have made it this far in life without knowing how to read? I wrote a musical, god fucking dammit."  
"Do you forget high school? Like, the entirety of it? Especially the part where we busted our asses to get you to graduate?"  
"That's not how it went down, Mac. That is such an exaggeration."  
"What?! How could you even say that. You cheated through school. We helped you cheat.-" Mac went off until Dennis decided to end this debate permanently. He scrawled letters onto scrap paper hurriedly and then thrust the finished product toward Charlie.  
"What does this say?"  
"What?"  
"Look at this and read it, Charlie. What does it say?"  
"What are you talking about?"  
"Oh my god. Either read it or admit that you cant."  
Dennis' last words escalated in decibels and stung Charlie, who just stood there in silence until he eventually muttered an okay, or something that sounded similar to an okay and that was good enough for Dennis.  
He turned and smiled to his peers, like this was an exhibit and he had everything under control. Admitting the problem was the first step, right, and he broke Charlie pretty quickly. The rest should come easily. 

It didn't.

Because what comes after admitting the problem is convincing the illiterate that it would be in everyone's benefit if he should learn to fucking read.

Mid argument/persuasion, Charlie brings up the logic he'd held close since he first came to terms with his reality.  
"I'm not gonna be a science man or a letter writer or a english teacher."  
And that's what does it for Dennis. Though he was a powerful man, he wasn't a teacher. The gang's attempts at teaching Charlie to read had always failed because they were not teachers themselves. What he needed was a professional.

"This is the same shit idea you had when we were in high school,"  
"No, not a tutor. A teacher. Besides, tutors come to you and I don't want some nerd ruining the bar's aesthetic. Charlie, we're sending you to community college."  
"If I cant read any good, how am I supposed to learn at college? This is worse than the tutor plan, Dennis. Because at college you're supposed to go there with reading knowledge already. These are the guys who's gonna be a science man and letter writers and that's just not me."  
"No, Charlie, you're looking at it all wrong," Dennis explained, while the rest of the gang had to side with Charlie's argument thus far. "The best way to learn something is to throw yourself into it. Learning languages is best done by moving to the country and having to figure it all out as you go. You have to figure out the language quickly and by yourself to survive. We want you to learn to read quickly and by yourself."

\--

Everyone except Dee took Dee's car to the community college that was not the closest to Frank's and Charlie's apartment. Dennis said that the farther from home he was, the quicker he would learn because he would need it for survival.  
Frank, in the backseat, was reinstating the whole ride that he had already put two kids through college and wouldn't do a third, even though there's a great chance that Charlie was his only biological child. They'd already taken Frank's credit card so they treated his threats like elevator music. Charlie was kept uninformed as ever, only to further his confusion and force him out of his comfort zone. It'd help him learn quicker.

Dennis and Mac kept him in the car, too with Frank as they parked and filled out Charlie's application. But Frank just made the whole situation more unbearable, so Charlie ran after the guys and made their situation more unbearable. 

By the end of it, Charlie had been signed up for English I. Dennis tried to enroll him in more courses, at least psychology, but Charlie threw a fit and the lady at the desk was trying to piece together what they were up to, or if they were up to something.  
Charlie's concern was that he would end up as dirt grub again. He just kept on wailing in the lobby, he just kept yelling, "I dont want to be dirt grub, I dont want to be dirt grub dennis, I dont want to be dirt grub again." It sounded fake. It was.

\--

Charlie showed up with his old high school backpack (why did his mom still have that??) which was totally unnecessary because all he had was a notebook and a pencil and a textbook and he could carry those things with his perfectly functioning arms. He was reluctant in showing up to class but Dennis dragged him and threatened him when bribing didn't work. Dennis got kind of sick of driving him after the first week was through and he left Charlie to his own devices. 

The professor talked too fast and Charlie couldn't keep up, half because he kept skipping class and half because he remembered too much about the time in high school when Mac tried to teach him how to read. He spent the night under the harsh water of his shower and he didn't say a word. He just made Mac go home. He never makes Mac go home. He just knew that Mac wouldn't get it no theres nothing to 'get' Charlie's just making it all up like he always does with his stupid stories Charlie's too high to know left from right he doesn't even know how to read he doesn't remember what happened it was all a blur at least he wished it was a blur it was so so vivid every time someone reminded him of his illiteracy

Not that he was illiterate FUCK. 

He wanted to crawl back into his shell of denial. It was comfortable and it was working. It was working. It was working. 

Kind of.

After he skips an entire two weeks of class and shows up with paint on his mouth his English professor pulls him aside.   
"Do you want to be here, Charlie?" she asked.  
"No, not at all," Charlie laughed. His professor was taken aback, rather expecting a confession. A fear of failure, a loss of inspiration, an identity crisis. Would you give me something to work with.  
She gathered her thoughts and tried again.  
"Why are you here, then?"  
"Well, I'm like never here, but I'm here now," he pointed to the floor, "because Dennis got mad at me for skipping and he drove me here and I have no money and no way to get back home," Charlie rambled on like it was obvious.   
"Is Dennis forcing you into being here?" She asked, looking for conformation and not knowing who this man was.  
"Oh yeah, he says it's like going to a new country and learning the language quick so I'm learning English."  
"What does this have to do with enrolling in my class?"  
"I just explained it to you, lady, but okay, if I go to another country I'll learn another language and if I go to college I'll learn English. Obviously."  
"What do you mean when you say you'll learn English? You seem to know it fine, since you're speaking to me in English."  
"See, thats exactly how I feel. I'm not illiterate, I keep telling Dennis but he thinks I am just because he cant read my writing and I cant read his."  
"Hold on. Illiterate? If you have problems when it comes to reading, there's help for you. It is never too late to learn to read, and"  
"Oh no, it's okay. I don't really need to read for anything. I'm a janitor and a piano man. It's not like I need to read for anything."  
"Reading is essential in every walk of life, Mr. Kelly. When you write music you're using the English language."  
Charlie shrugged it off.  
"There are plenty of examples. Even in your role as a janitor, when you're around toxic chemicals, for instance, you must read their bottles to ensure the safety of others as well as yourself. Right?"  
"No way, I got all that covered. Dennis makes little skulls on the bad chemicals so I won't huff them. And I can write music just fine. No one else gets it but it's fine. They usually misinterpret the songs anyway, ya know what I mean?"

"Not really, if I'm being honest. Charlie," she said, leaning forward in her chair. "This class isn't going to cut it for you. I also teach English as a second language to immigrant adults. Another branch of our organization caters to low literacy adults. It's right outside of Philadelphia and if I recall correctly, they have meetings twice a week."  
"Oh, shit, prof. Is this like one of those one on one things? No way, man, that's like a tutor and I can't do a tutor," Charlie reinstated, going back to his high school mindset.  
"Actually, it's quite different nowadays. More adult literacy programs are being taught in a class-like setting with a reading professor along with volunteered teachers. You won't be alone with a tutor, I can assure you."  
Charlie was quiet, stared quizzically at his professor and hesitated before asking, "What's that supposed to mean?" He got defensive when he got nervous. Like maybe it'd distract or confuse her and she'd just let him leave.  
"Nothing, it's just that the one on one approach has far less satisfying results than learning in a group. Students tend to skip meetings when they're alone with a tutor. This approach is much better, I wasn't insinuating anything, Charlie."  
"Oh. Okay, then. Good."  
Professor scrawled down a phone number and a website in chicken scratch then handed it to Charlie. "Here," she said. "Please call this number. They're there to help you."


	3. Chapter 3

Charlie didn't call. He pondered the thought over the course of a few nights. His days off of class, specifically. Like, he thought about how maybe, he could call and learn to read and if he did that he could be better and do better and really, Charlie hadn't ever been much of an ambitious guy, but he could be better somehow. Maybe there was a way to climb out of the rut he was in. The dirty laundry wearing, cat food eating, slump he'd been sharing with Frank for god knows how long. He didn't mind being gross but he wanted it to be his choice, at least. He deserved that much. He still didn't call the number. 

Then eventually, during one of his three am nightmare-induced showers, he stripped his clothes under their barely functioning shower head and he let his clothes soak at the bottom of their bath tub. The ink of that chicken scratch note had smudged and had grown unreadable. It was like, a sign, maybe, not to do it.   
So there he was, not changing anything about himself and not attending class and not even picking up the phone in case it was his professor. This was bound to go on forever, the gang assumed, and they accepted this fact and promptly moved on. 

Charlie sort of walked around in a daze, like he was so hyper aware of his friends' most recent failure to teach him, he just blocked out some really important things. So he huffed a lot of glue, obviously, and tuned out a lot more and made less sense. This wasn't a buildup to a great epiphany or a wake up call. Charlie was not changing anything about himself. If anything, he was worse off than before he signed those forms.

He kept getting lost alone in the city and he overdosed on nyquil one time and he ingested some things that would have put the average man in the hospital. 

And what did the gang always do when the going got tough? 

They gave up. Immediately, and with no remorse or hint of a second attempt.

\--

By some case of dumb luck Charlie stumbled around Philly high until he stumbled out of Philly without noticing his footing. He hadn't meant anything by it but he called the college and ineloquently asked for that phone number again. 

"I need the number."  
"Sir, I'm going to need you to elaborate."  
"Fuck off with the big words. I need that number. The phone number. For the reading."  
"Sir. I'm trying to help you. What number is this, who gave it to you?"  
The words teacher, english, and illiterate came out of his mouth but with no other words to collect the sentence. He hoped it worked.  
"A teacher here gave you a number?"  
"Yeah," Charlie grunted.  
"Can I ask which teacher?"  
"For English. Uh. Dono-somethin."  
"Donohue," the woman exclaimed. "Alright, I can forward this call to her. Just stay on the line for another minute, sir."

With that she was gone, his professor picked up the line, and she helped him figure out his way to the adult learning center, or whatever she was deciding to call the place. The building she described showed up in his line of sight. An old brick building, vines hugging the walls up to the roof. No cars anywhere near it. Kinda creepy, but whatever.

His (old?) professor (yeah, he guessed he was probably not going back, officially) told him that there wasn't class for another two hours, but that'd give him enough time to register. It'd give him time for the rest of that dull high to wear off.

\--

He was freaking out while he sat in a really uncomfortable plastic chair in the foyer of this place, filling out papers with all this information he didn't know but knew he should. He knew his name, obviously. His apartment was a number he kept inverting and he could 't remember if it was a 52 or a 25. He knew how to get there, so why did it matter? 

A woman offered her help and it wasn't like Charlie was too proud to accept it but he knew she couldn't help. She didn't know where he lived, either. He wanted to skip. He wanted to huff paint and do something stupid. Was this like a nitwit school? Oh god, this is probably just like a nitwit school. Was Charlie a nitwit for being illiterate? The words sound the same and  
"Sir?"  
The woman at the executive desk was staring at him and he wanted to like, punch her or something.   
Charlie sat there, trying to remember the thoughts he had just lost. He couldn't remember what he had been thinking about, but he still felt stressed, so it couldn't have been pleasant. But his stomach twisted in new ways and he didn't know if he wanted to go to class or go home. He didn't know his way home from here and if Dennis or Dee or Mac picked him up he would probably jump out of the car and roll into traffic if they said anything at all on the drive back. So okay, he decided, he'd stay.

The knot twisted tighter as Charlie imagined a cross between his sophomore English room and his first grade classroom, with rows of beige desks and colored mats on the floor. There was a chalkboard with geometry equations and a banner along the ceiling illustrating the alphabet. There were science textbooks and crayons in his figurative desk.

\--

There wasn't eventually a moment where he exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding in. He felt sick the entire lesson. Whatever. Wasn't a big deal. The tightness in his chest didn't mean shit. 

The class did feel more like group therapy with their tables set up in a semi circle around their professor. Charlie couldn't say it it felt like high school because the room was in the second floor of a rented out building and there was art on the walls and there were carpets and a stairwell in the center of the room, behind where his professor stood. The other students (students? yeah, I guess students works) were not his age but it wasn't weird because they were twenty one and thirty nine and forty two and fifty six and so on. They all couldn't read so they couldn't make fun of Charlie and call him illiterate. They all had their own Dennis' and Dee's and Mac's to deal with. 

Still, every time someone used the word illiteracy, Charlie felt the wind knocked out of him until he remembered it was not a bad word. The American education system had failed HIM, he hadn't failed it. He was like, a victim of shitty public schools. He had nothing to feel sick about. But that wasn't the root of the problem.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for flashbacks. theyll be in italics. nothing graphic, it just alludes to what happened.

The class functioned in a really oral and hands on way, which eased a lot of Charlie's stress. He had handled it all awesomely until they got to spelling. They started slow, understanding that most of them felt overwhelmed with shame already. They started with easy stuff, like the alphabet, then sounds, and then once everyone felt more comfortable around each other and learning, they were writing words which twisted into sentences. Most people knew the entire alphabet, but none of them complained that it was too easy. It was nothing like high school, thank god.

There were world globes set up in front of each student, and most of them were already slowly spinning them, trying to figure out the assignment. The professor had them all twirl their globes to the United States. Half the class found it before Charlie. He noticed this. But they were respectful, so it didn't make him nervous.

She had them all sound out the letters one at a time. Charlie didn't stand out when he struggled with the 'you' sound in united and the 'A' in states. There was a fair amount of stuttering from everyone else and he was so happy. Is that a bad thing to be happy about? The professor saw him grinning and she didn't shoot him a dirty look. So probably not.

Professor gave them all worksheets illustrating an outline of the country, each state was a blank space and professor had them sound out the words as they wrote them. Charlie didn't misspell the really easy states, like Texas and Ohio. (score!!) He fucked up Alaska and California and Massachusetts and he didn't know there was a New in front of Jersey. It went okay, mostly. He spelled Philly right, but he was supposed to write Pennsylvania in that slot so it didn't count. He wasn't reprimanded for inverting all the letters and writing most of them backward and for drawing pictures instead of letters because Nebraska is easier to draw than to write. Charlie was handling class well. Like, a lot better than expected. He was actively participating and he blended into the classroom like he belonged there. He did belong there.

Charlie was okay. He was scared and he didn't know why, but there was a feeling like shit was gonna hit the fan or he was gonna puke. He didn't puke, but shit certainly hit the fan. 

There was this oral assignment, as in, the professor would say words and the students would write them to practice spelling. They. Spring. Fell. Grown. Never. Almost.  
And then Charlie cracked. The anxiety filled him and he couldn't put a finger on where it was coming from. Almost.

-

_"Okay, are you ready for the next one?" Jack asked._  
"Duh, come on, hit me with a hard one."  
The setting is his childhood kitchen. It's barely past three. He got home, had lunch, and practiced spelling. Like he always did with his mom, except mom was let go from her day job and now she had to spend more time either 'out' or in her room. (Charlie didn't ask where she went) So Jack was babysitting Charlie and no one would look any farther than that.  
"Always," Jack said. A nervous tint had found its way to his voice. His hands were sweaty. He tested the waters, inched closer to his nephew. No protest.  
"A-L-W-A." Jack inched his fingers to his knee. A pause ensued, but Charlie kept going. "Y. S. Always," Charlie finished, tone deflated. Jack's hand crawled up Charlie's leg. Charlie stayed quiet, hoping if he waited hard enough for the next word then it would come. His stomach twisted itself into knots and it was never quite undone. Just tolerated or managed or ignored.  
-

Back in real time in his adult classroom he was spelling out the word. The only student speaking. The professor stopped but couldn't say a word. Or maybe Charlie couldn't hear her over his own crying and the image of Jack's hands. "A-L-W-A-Y-S-A-L-W-A-Y-S-A-L-W-A-Y-S-A-L-W-A-Y-S-A-L-W-A-Y-S-A-L-W-A-" and then it was over. His mother was home. Jack told her he had been a good boy. And he went home. Charlie was safe. Charlie was safe and he was noticing that the woman in front of him asking, "Charlie, are you alright? Charlie?" wasn't the same woman who had asked him how school had been that day. The woman was his teacher, but he wasn't a kid anymore. He had been safe since he was nineteen. He was in his thirties, that meant he made it. He got out, he worked at a bar, he had his own studio with Frank, he was in a classroom again, but he was out. 

The woman in front of him was his teacher. Yeah, he was in adult reading classes. He was learning to read. Because of Jack, yeah, but he was out. Shit, was he out? He had just had what was most likely a flashback and he was shaking and his eyes were wet (shit, had he just been /crying/?) and the anxiety was as real as it was when he was in the second grade.

And then he could hear the real world again. Professor was asking him if he was alright. She must have called his name a dozen times before his paralyzed mouth could move again.  
"What? Oh. Yeah, I'm okay."  
"Are you sure. Here, I'll take you to the hall for fresh air."  
"No, it's alright. How many words did I miss?"

Professor opened her mouth to speak but she bit her tongue and let it go, not wanting to make the scene Charlie made any bigger. Most of the students were staring; of course his natural reaction would be to put out the fire, per se. So after she dismissed her class she walked toward Charlie's seat. He had been gathering his books but he looked her way when he had noticed her presence. 

"Hello," he singsonged with an awkward air.  
"Could you stay after class with me, Charlie?" She didn't want to dance around the matter and she got right to the point.  
"Uh." He /could, he didn't want to though. He was a decent liar enough but wasn't the whole point of this learning how to read so he could stop lying to everybody? No, that was different lying. That was lying about a totally different thing and this was lying about something worlds away. Almost. Uh, I guess not too far away though because wasn't this secret the underlying cause of his illiteracy.   
"I don't want to trouble you, but I'd like to talk to you about today."  
Charlie couldn't think fast enough to come up with a way out of this.  
"Sure thing, prof."   
She sat down beside him and asked, "How are you?"  
Charlie knew, obviously, that saying he was fine would get him nowhere but he had just realized he could have said Mac was waiting for him in the car and he really couldn't stay, so he had to try. But all the thoughts got jumbled and the words got mixed up and he just said, "yes." He sounded confident about it although something felt off.  
"Do you mean to say you're fine?" This woman knew fuckin' everything.  
"Fine," he said this time. The professor took that as a yes.  
"Charlie," she said with sincerity. "I don't think you are. And if you don't want to talk about it with me, I understand."  
"I can't talk," Charlie spit out. He wasn't sure if it came out right.  
"There's a... cause for what happened today," she said, picking her words carefully.   
This was why Charlie sorta loved her. She didn't use words he didn't know so he didn't blank out and accidentally ignore her. And she didn't call him an idiot. "Are you okay with making phone calls?" He just nods, giving his tongue tied mouth a break. And then professor scrawled eleven digits onto the inside of his notebook along with a name. "This man is a psychiatrist, Charlie. I'm going to send you for a psych eval. That doesn't mean anything is wrong with you, okay? He's just really good at helping people who cant read learn why they cant read. He's gonna make sure you're okay."

Charlie was never going to some loony bin or whatever he was supposed to be doing. He said okay just to get his professor to stop talking. Then he gathered his shit and got out. He'd have torn up the number if it weren't on the cover of his notebook.

He'd later discover that his professor had made an appointment for him after weeks of Charlie not answering when she asked if he had called. And now he had to go in to get checked out before he could come back to class and she was sorry, really, but she wouldn't be able to teach him adequately if she couldn't get to the underlying problem. She kept using those exact words.


	5. Chapter 5

A man clad in a beige cardigan and sporting a really shitty undercut was sitting cross legged with a clipboard in his lap. He had, like, really nice ancient looking furniture in his office and it makes the room look like the guy's house. His house probably did look just like his office.   
Anyway.  
He clicked his pen and asked Charlie how he was doing, (English accent, of fucking couse) then if he knew why he was here. Weird. He didn't know how to answer.  
The psychiatrist wasn't as considerate with his word choice. He kept using big words that all began with 'psych' and it was giving Charlie a fucking migrane. He just wanted to pass this test and go back to class.

This guy clearly had a list of questions he had to get through and Charlie wished he'd cut it out with the segways, just fuckin hammer through the interview or whatever this was so he could go home. This guy tried prying into his history, even asked what branch of military he was in. (What? None. - Oh, I am terribly sorry, I was informed that-) And then there was an incessant flipping through pages and a couple 'I'm sorry's and then he got back to the careful questions. 

This guy was supposed to make Charlie feel safe but he just spent the entire session crawling under his skin until he felt naked on the floral couch, under the dull lights, under the psychiatrist's microscope. This fucker had weaseled it out of him that something bad may have happened a long long time ago and maybe Charlie still thinks about it even though he tells himself he doesnt and maybe he says that its ok now even though it really isn't and maybe he pretends so hard that nothing happened, he starts to believe its true. When he gets like this, he cant remember why his uncle's hands sting, why he sees dirt on that man's hands, why no matter how many times he stands, fully clothed, under his shower head after escaping a nightmare, he still feels this soiled thing, this muscle memory of something that shouldn't have been where it was.

He left with a diagnosis for PTSD. Nothing he could get drugs over, just something to keep him up at night.

the psychiatrist wanted to schedule routine appointments with Charlie to work through his issues but Charlie was having absolutely none of that. He had just admitted he was raped, hadn't this guy had enough? I mean how fucking sadistic can you be? He was seasick on solid ground and there were hornets in his guts starting storms and tearing him apart. The dirtiest parts of him started to glow like they were under fluorescent lights. 

The psychiatrist just referred him to a support group for survivors of abuse and assault. Charlie was fucking tired of all the people trying to pry apart his brain and he was tired of cooperating. He just wanted to learn to read. He just wanted to learn to read so that people would stop walking all over him so much. And now here he was being tossed from professional to professional. Doctors were a neverending game of hopscotch. This was why Charlie didn't have health insurance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a very short update because i just wanted to get it out and stop looking at it, to be honest, and also i felt bad for not updating recently. it's so so short but i've been struggling to write this scene because it's been so long since i've had this psych eval and i couldnt remember what even went on. i do have more written, but this scene is an important and necessary transition so i'll leave you with this for rn.


	6. Chapter 6

A bunch of black plastic chairs were arranged in an almost complete circle and most of the returning anonymous had already returned, claiming their seats in the support group's circle. Charlie had been sitting in the passenger seat of Dee's car with Mac beside him right outside the building. He'd been refusing to budge from the car. 

Mac didn't know exactly why he was here but Charlie just said he needed a ride and that it was important. Mac wouldn't have even cared if not for the fact that Charlie always opens up about his secrets eventually and this time he wasn't. Mac tried to push the subject the entire ride but Charlie sat petrified and wouldn't say a word if it was to answer a question.

What finally got him out of that car was Mac saying, "ya know, bro, if you don't get out I'm gonna have to go in there to find out what this fuss is all about." Charlie ripped the door open and marched to the building, praying that Mac wouldn't follow. His friends never knew when to quit, when a subject should be treated sensitively. Charlie wasn't followed. 

So far, so good. He had followed all his psych evaluator's instructions. Don't be high. Don't be drunk. He said this aggressive behavior could trigger survivors there, but Charlie thought he wanted him to remember the whole experience. Maybe dealing with rape was harder if you couldn't remember dealing with it. And Charlie didn't want to have to come back next week like it was his first week. So he sucked up the anxiety eating at his insides and he opened the double doors to the support group.

All the heads in the room turned and Charlie wanted to throw up or cause a really big scene and leave or pretend he's at the wrong address or something but by the time he shuffles through his ideas, he realizes no one's staring anymore and he closes the door and makes his way to the circle. And that's when he sees her.

Holy shit, the waitress was seated with her hands folded across her lap and she was looking down and she probably saw him. In any other situation, he'd have been delighted to see her but now?! Now he just wanted to hide. He picked a chair angled the farthest away from her (which wasn't by much because this was, in fact, a circle) and he slinked down into it, turning his face away from her.

Charlie had hoped that he could hide amongst the others and not be noticed, but that hope died when a woman started the meeting by suggesting that they around and do introductions. He had feared that it would be sort of like AA, and they'd all have to go around the circle and call themselves alcoholics, or in this case, rape survivors. Instead, they were only asked to state their names. They could share anything positive right away, like new opportunities for coping skills or something good that happened that week or what the fuck ever. There was a really down to earth vibe that Charlie appreciated. Like they all knew that he needed to do this slowly and needed breathing space. Well, then again, they all did. 

Charlie looked around the circle as names were announced, trying to remember everyone on the first go. He went after a woman named Yvette and before a woman named Kathe. He noticed at this point that there were mostly women in the circle. He was relieved. He couldn't talk about this to a man, obviously. But shit, he /was/ a man. There had to be women in the circle who felt unsafe because he was a man. He pondered leaving. He pondered ASKING if he should leave. He stayed quiet, though and listened to Yvette talk about running into Fucker at a coffee shop, which he apparently worked at. Apparently, most of the women called their abusers by other names, like, to de-trigger their names, or something. It was really rad. He felt less weird for calling him the Nightman.   
Anyway, Yvette ordered her coffee and rushed out of that joint, crying in her car on the way home but then she pulled over, popped in a mixtape that some girl in the circle made her, and she focused on breathing and breathing and breathing. Charlie wished he brought a notebook because these girls clearly knew what they were doing, mostly.   
And then they all turned to him. After a moment of hesitation, he realized what that meant.  
"Oh. Uh. Hi. I'm... Charlie. I don't have anything positive to share, so. I'm gonna pass."  
The woman leading the group subtly nodded and Charlie felt the anxiety diminish into something less severe. Like butterflies. This was butterflies. Kathe took over for him, not even missing a beat, like she'd done this so many times before.

As the evening went on, Charlie opened up enough to raise his hand and ask for a pen so he could write some of this stuff down. He left with his right arm covered in ink, still illegible, but with more words and less pictures than something he'd have written two months ago. His handwriting had improved, too, because of all the practice. He spent the entire evening sober and he spent the entire evening not wishing he wasn't.

He had originally planned to ditch first so no one would remember his face, but he ended up staying after to thank Yvette for bringing up the name de-triggering thing and the cassette tapes. He told her that he called his Fucker the Nightman. Despite not speaking more than twenty words throughout the meeting, he still felt accomplished. And then he decided to leave on that note, but he was bombarded outside the door by the one woman he'd have thought wanted to be farthest from him.

"What the hell are you doing here Charlie? Did you follow me here? Because that's sick, even for you. Don't you know when to"  
"I was raped," Charlie interrupted in a whisper, feeling subhuman and illegitimate. Eyes fearful and butterflies swarming back to a stomachful of anxiety.  
"What?" Waitress asked.  
But Charlie could only bring himself to say, "yeah. that's why I'm. Yanno. Here," gesturing to the room behind him.  
Waitress was quiet for a minute, and she just looked just past Charlie, looking like she was about to vomit. She shook her head momentarily and just looked at Charlie, debating what to say.  
"I'm sorry I assumed that you were stalking me," she decided on.  
"Nah," Charlie shrugged. "It's totally cool. Like, I follow you enough for you to come up with that idea."  
"Yeah, you do. But really, if you're here for... the right reasons, then I want to help you. If you want."  
Charlie doubted she could help him if she wasn't even comfortable with saying the word, but if it meant he could spend more time with her, then he'd do it. Maybe his psychiatrist would give him bonus points if he did.  
"You don't have to do that. You probably don't want to, right? I mean shit, I want to, but probably not for the right reasons like you were saying." Charlie shoved his hands in his pockets and the girl across him just stared at the robin's egg floor tiles.   
"Oh, yeah, right," she nodded. "Well. I guess I'll see you Thursday?"  
"Yeah. See you Thursday."  
Before she turned to leave, she said, "And Charlie, this is important. Keep this between us. I don't need your friends harassing me about this. I know none of you know when to quit, but this is really important and I'm trusting you."  
"Yeah," Charlie smirked, flashing a thumbs up. "Sure thing."

Unlike in AA, Charlie had a real pressing issue and Waitress couldn't help herself, let alone him. Drinking wasn't a problem, it was more like a symptom. This was the problem. He was staring it in the face and waitress was so beautiful but she didn't know what the hell she was doing, either. His psychiatrist probably wouldn't have given him bonus points for that. But he wasn't completely sure; he'd ask during their next session if he had won or not.  
Walking out, secretly deciding it had been a win sans the opinion of his psych, he pondered the coincidence of him running into the waitress. And then his stomach turned as he fully understood how this coincidence could have played out. Holy shit. Oh my god, Charlie thought. Somebody assaulted her.

\--

The week crawls along slowly until it doesn't anymore. It would be four days until his group would meet again. Shit. There were like five support groups held by this program at least, why did he show up to the one where the waitress attended? Hell, he could have gone to the childhood sexual assault group, he could have sucked up his fear of men and gone to the male survivor's group. But he joined the most generic one. Maybe it was because he'd rather not be with people who would tell stories so similar to his own. He was less likely to throw up if he couldn't see himself quite so well in another survivor's shoes.

He wasn't likely to see himself in the waitress.

Was he breaking the restraining order? Shit. 

\--

Thursday came reluctantly but the afternoon still snuck up on him. Charlie woke up in a sweat in the middle of the night, spent an hour showering and left his clothes in the bath tub. It was becoming routine. After waiting anxiously to see the waitress again he was now overcome with a feeling of dread. They were both damaged, weren't they? They were two damaged people who could never be together, right? It could be written in a romantic perspective, he supposed, if only he were composed enough to save the waitress. He wasn't an inspirational damaged person, he was just irrevocably broken and once the girl of his dreams realized this she would leave him. He was so close to her now and he was going to lose her because he was Charlie. Charlie spent the entire morning in the basement of Paddy's with rats, his club, and a can of spray paint.

He hadn't taken notice the silver smudged over his nose and mouth and chin before showing up at the waitresses door. The doorbell rang only a few minutes after 3:20, which was usually the time waitress left for ASA. 

Charlie's punctuality had led the waitress to assume he would be well behaved, but as always, she had given her stalker too much hope, she realized when she saw the paint.  
"Oh god, Charlie. Have you been inhaling paint?" she asked, well aware of Charlie's previous activities. She typically wouldn't care, but she cared about this group and didn't want it to fall to shambles because of Charlie. She was getting so close to speaking and she wasnt about to let Charlie ruin her month of silent attendance all in one meeting.   
Charlie had mumbled an incoherent response, which sounded like neither an agreement nor a disagreement. The waitress gestured inside her door and just said, "Come on," before letting a high Charlie into her apartment to wash his face.

He stared around at first, nodding and saying, "I like what you've done to the place." She hadn't done anything to this place since Charlie had last been inside, but she just said thanks and led him to the bathroom. She submerged a washcloth under her faucet and applied a generous amount of hand soap, then vigorously trying to strip the silver from Charlie. It didn't work too well. One handful more of soap and a dirty washcloth later was the end of the waitress' attempts to make Charlie look presentable. She'd never have guessed he had showered that morning. 

The paint looked less prominent. If someone saw him at a glance, or perhaps in a severely dimmer lighting, he could pass as just sick. Not that it mattered to the waitress, really. So she just said, "come on," again and walked out her front door. Charlie followed, obviously. 

He wasn't sure if he should say something or not, so he decided to fill the silence in the waitress' car with music. He didn't turn the radio on, he just started singing. But he was high as shit so it sounded more like a bunch of fast paced ramblings about spiders and night men. She didn't quite get it. She tried to for awhile before he sort of started over, going on about things that didn't make sense. And then she tuned him out until they got to ASA.

He sat next to her this time and at certain points, tried to hold her hand. The waitress complied out of a certain pity- No, that wasn't it. She hated pity. It was empathy, she guessed? This was probably the closest to empathy a person could feel toward Charlie Kelly. He squeezed her hand during mentions of CSA or uncles or darkness. She didn't want to try to piece together his story because she certainly didn't want him doing the same to her, but he just made it easy. He made himself vulnerable for her. Sometimes the waitress forgot that Charlie really did think he loved her and wasn't just following her around and refusing to leave her alone. 

She'd hated him for awhile because of this, but maybe he really didn't know how healthy relationships worked. Maybe he didn't understand rejection because of how his own body autonomy had been overwritten by another. She really didn't want to give him the benefit of the doubt but she did anyway. And now she would just wait for him to make her regret it.

He just continued to hold her hand and squeeze it when he started to feel sick.


End file.
